World's First Liquid-Cooled Lightbulb: What's The Point?

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World's First Liquid-Cooled Lightbulb: What's The Point?

The HydraLux lightbulb is, according to its manufacturer Eternal LEDs, the world’s first liquid-cooled bulb. Liquid cooling is usually reserved for machines which need to shift a lot of heat, and fast: Car engines, high-end gaming rigs and Cray supercomputers. So why an LED lightbulb?

It seems that it’s little more than a gimmick. As the liquid (paraffin oil) isn’t circulated mechanically to help dissipate heat through conduction, the only gain appears to be a more efficient moving of energy to the outer surface. The lamp also gives a “true 360 degree light like a regular light bulb”.

We don’t really see the advantage of this over other LED bulbs. If Eternal LEDs had put a mini lava-lamp inside, though, we’d be happy to pay the $35. The bulb consumes 5W power and puts out the equivalent of a 25w incandescent bulb. It also last for 35,000 hours, which is four years of 24/7 use.